Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Only one of its kind in India the Bandra Worli Sea Link is an 8-lane, cable-stayed bridge which is the first phase of the proposed West Island Freeway system. The sea link will connect Bandra and the western suburbs of Mumbai with Worli and central Mumbai. The Hindustan Construction Company executed this Rs.1600 crore project of Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC). The Designs and Project management is done by M/s DAR Consultants. The foundation stone of this link was laid by Bal Thackeray in 1999. The sea link was inaugurated by Sonia Gandhi on 30th June 2009 and is named after Rajiv Gandhi.

The original project design was modified to include 2 separate towers for the main cable stay bridge as to increase the height of the link. The bridge was realigned around 150m into the sea and an additional cable stay bridge was introduced at the Worli side to increase the height of the bridge to meet the demands of local fishermen of Worli Koliwada as this would ease their vessel movement under the bridge. These change in the scope of work resulted in the delayed in the initial stages, which increased project cost.

The Bandra Cable Stay section of the Sea link spans 600m in length and towers to a height of 126m. The Cable Stay system comprises 2,250 km of high strength galvanized steel wires which support the Cable Stay Bridge weighing 20,000 ton. Each cable has a capacity to carry 90tonnes.Rs. 9 Crore alone is the cost of illuminating the bridge. It took 38000 KM Long Steel Ropes, 575000 tonnes of Concrete & 6000 Workers to build this massive structure. The total length of the sea link is 5.6km.

The Sea Link enables speedy travel between Bandra and Worli, cutting travel times from 45–60 minutes to 25 minutes. The old route through Mahim causeway was not only conjusted with traffic but a person had to face 24 signals on the way as it was the only route that connected the western suburbs and central mumbai.

An automatic system is been implanted which will identify vehicles going over the 50 kmph limit.Hi-tech cameras on the link can take swift 360-degree turn and capture images of vehicles within 1.5 km. range. 12 cameras will be monitored by MSRDC, traffic police and city police. Link will be under the jurisdiction of Bandra and Worli police stations. Policemen on bikes will patrol along the bridge and will help traffic police to pull over errant drivers. Two cameras are fitted under the cable-stayed portions of the link which will keep an eye on the movements of boats and ships.

Access will be controlled on the Worli end by toll plazas on the Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Road, and on the Bandra end by toll plazas at Love Grove Junction.